heads will roll
by dress without sleeves
Summary: The immediate consequences of the Sue Sylvester Shuffle. Or: a celebration of Glee not sucking anymore. Puck/Rachel, Quinn/Finn, Quinn/Sam, Brittany/Santana, Mike/Tina, Kurt/Blaine. Probably others. Rated for language.


**Author's Notes:** Y'all. _Y'all._ It's been so long since I liked an episode of _Glee_, I'd almost forgotten what it felt like.

heads will roll

Sam knows it's over the second Quinn slams George Washington onto the kissing booth counter and shrugs her bag off her shoulder, lips quirking. He knows it's over because she's never once looked at him like that, sexy and playful and familiar. She wears short skirts andmakes him keep his hands to himself, but she's never been a _tease_. Her eyes have always said no.

Quinn's eyes don't say no when she looks at Finn. Her eyes say: remember that time in the sixth grade when we played Seven Minutes In Heaven and our teeth clacked together so hard it hurt?

.x.

Berry breaks open her piggy bank the night that Finn makes the Kissing Booth announcement. She spends two and a half hours neatly stacking her quarters into piles of four, crazy eyes turned up to eleven.

Puck slouches in her dads' Lay-Z-Boy, half-listening to the game and half-listening to Berry lay out her plan for Finn Domination, in which she uses all two hundred and fifty dollars to guarantee that "no McKinley hussy gets her paws on him, and I'm looking at you, _Santana Lopez_."

He lets her make her piles, because it makes her feel better and because her distraction means he can get away with putting his feet on the coffee table. But after, when she's stuck hunched in a city of precarious silver discs because she didn't stack with an exit strategy in mind, he lifts her out by her hands and sets her on her feet.

"You know that's not gonna work, right?" he asks.

Berry sniffs miserably, leaning against him. "Of course I know it's not going to work, I am not an idiot, Noah."

They survey the quarters in silence, Berry chewing at the thumb on her right hand and Puck considering that in the last two months she might have somehow become his best friend. "So . . . wanna go blow all this at Walmart?"

Berry sighs. "Let me get my coat," she says, and presses her hand against his in thanks.

.x.

Tina can't drive home from the game because of her concussion, so Mike takes her in his brother's car. She's quiet and still, which kind of freaks him out, because cars make Tina nervous so usually she's fidgety and jabbers on about nothing.

"You okay?" he asks anxiously, glancing over at her. "Coach Beast said I shouldn't let you fall asleep."

"I'm not falling asleep," Tina answers, and takes his hand on the armrest. "I'm just thinking."

"What about?"

She lolls her head to the side and grins at him. It's hideous and terrifying in the dark because she's still wearing her zombie makeup, but it's still _Tina_, so he smiles back. "I was thinking that if I was a boy, I'd make an awesome football player."

Mike grins, squeezing her hand. He tries to imagine Tina in a letterman jacket throwing slushies on people. "I'm glad you're not a boy, T," he says quietly, because he doesn't say stuff like that nearly often enough. It's not that he doesn't mean it, he just sort of . . . forgets. "I'm not a homophobe or anything but I don't think we'd be weird as a gay couple."

He's rewarded by Tina's startled laugh.

.x.

"I can't believe we aren't cheerleaders anymore," Brittany says, shoving her hands into her sweatshirt pocket and looking out at the empty football field.

Santana shrugs brusquely, rubbing at her temples. This shit is so fucked up, like legit retarded. She's been training to be a Cheerio since she was _nine_ fucking years old, clawing and scratching her way up the social ladder until she got to the top. She and Brittany and Quinn schemed and planned and plotted to get to that parking lot, standing next to Coach Sylvester's stupid fucking canon, and after all that hard work they just . . .

"But I'm glad we're still in Glee club," Brittany continues obliviously. "Mr. Schue is less scary than Coach Sylvester."

Santana sighs and holds up a pinky. Brittany links automatically, beaming. "You would've been fucking awesome if you'd done the canon thing," she says, "but I'm glad you're not, like, dead, or whatever." She squints out at the empty field and idly kicks at a leftover streamer. "Jesus, I'm never touching a fucking Sue Sylvester smoothie ever again. That shit is nastier than Lady Jew's morning breath."

Brittany hums happily as they walk to Santana's car. After a moment, Brittany mumbles, "I do feel bad about the baby canons, though."

.x.

Mercedes is two hours late meeting Kurt at their next coffee date; after forty-five minutes he calls Blaine and they dissect the latest issue of _O!_

"You know," Blaine says after a few minutes, "I'm really glad you decided to come to Dalton."

Kurt looks up, startled. "You are?" he asks, and then mentally curses himself. "I mean, of course you are. Look at me, I'm like Hollywood met the Von Trapp family and gave them a makeover."

Blaine rolls his eyes, nudging Kurt with his shoulder and pressing their legs together from the hip to the knee. Kurt makes himself stay calm. The contact can't be accidental, right, can it? He can't ever _tell_ with Blaine—is he being flirted with or is that just Blaine being Blaine? Because Blaine is, well, pretty super gay a lot of the time, and totally comfortable with it, so maybe he's just flirtatious with everyone and it's not specific to Kurt.

And anyway, Kurt has . . . never exactly been flirted with, so to speak, so he's not entirely sure what it looks like.

"Ass," Blaine declares fondly.

Their hands brush beneath the table, and Kurt holds his breath until Blaine's fingers wrap around his own and stay there.

.x.

Mercedes is two hours late because Karofsky shows up at her door with a slushie in hand and awkwardly thrusts it at her, staring hard at the ground. She knocks the drink out of his hand and crosses her arms over her chest, glaring.

"What do _you_ want?" she demands, throwing all her attitude into her hips and blocking the doorway like a bouncer at a nightclub. "Because dancing or no dancing, you're still the bitch that made my best friend transfer, so I have _nothing_ to say to you."

Karofsky rubs at the back of his neck. "Look, um," he stutters, "I didn't . . . I wanted to say—"

"If the next words out of your mouth are going to be 'I'm sorry,' then honey, you are standing at the _wrong_ door. Kurt Hummel lives twenty minutes away and I can give you directions."

He shakes his head, at last looking up at her, his mouth opening and closing silently. She notices for the first time that his lips are chapped and scabbed from worrying, his eyes pinched at the corners. "I _can_'_t,_" he manages to croak after a few seconds of soundless floundering. "I _can_'_t_ talk to Hum . . . to Kurt. It's—can't you—?"

Mercedes has a sudden flash of last year, standing in the parking lot at the car wash right before she threw a rock through Kurt's windshield. He'd been looking over her shoulder with an expression just like Karofsky is wearing now, all the words he wanted to saw jammed in his throat.

"_Ooooh_," she breathes, getting it, and Karofsky deflates, shrinking back a few steps. Mercedes sighs, stepping aside and pulling out her cell phone to text Kurt that she's going to be late. She takes a few steps inside before turning around. "Well, come on, then," she says flatly, rolling her eyes. "You wanted to talk, didn't you?"

He hesitates. "If you tell anyone—"

"Shut up and take a seat, white boy," she interrupts.


End file.
